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Current Management of Medulloblastoma

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Current Techniques in Neurosurgery

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Medulloblastoma is the most common posterior fossa tumor of childhood. Affected patients typically present with rapidly progressive headache, nausea, and vomiting from obstructive hydrocephalus. Medulloblastomas are inherently invasive lesions and show a high frequency of dissemination at diagnosis. Thus, although surgery plays an essential role in reducing the tumor burden and in opening the ventricular system and although it has an impact on prognosis, multi modal adjuvant therapy is essential to treat what is in reality an invasive, potentially multicentric disease process. During the past 25 years, advances in the surgical and adjuvant management have substantially improved the outlook for children with these tumors, making this one of the true “success stories” of pediatric neuro-oncologyi however, there is still substantial room for further progress, particularly in children with extensive postoperative residual disease and in those with dissemination. Ongoing studies are exploring ways of improving further the survival rate in these “high-risk” patients and reducing the treatment-related long-term morbidity in “standard-risk” patients. This chapter reviews recent advances in the molecular biology, diagnosis, and treatment of these tumors.

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  1. Ian F Follack
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Michael Salcman MD, FACS (Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery) (Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery)

  2. Sinai Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Michael Salcman MD, FACS (Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery) (Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery)

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Follack, I.F. (1998). Current Management of Medulloblastoma. In: Salcman, M. (eds) Current Techniques in Neurosurgery. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9350-4_19

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